Stud by Siskind, Kelly (18)

Eighteen

 

Ainsley

My face felt flush, my armpits a tad dewier than ideal in my vintage dress, but totally worth it after dancing with the girls. I also wasn’t ready to call it quits. But the funky pop mix blended into a romantic song. The kind of music that had me wanting to close my eyes and sink into my lover’s arms. Not Rachel’s or Gwen’s arms.

A tap on my back had my shoulders bunching toward my ears. Some players didn’t know how to take no for an answer. They also didn’t know who they were dealing with. Evil glare in place, I swiveled. “You must not value your nuts, assho—”

Except he wasn’t an asshole. He was Owen.

Bent forward at the waist, my charmer extended a hand in invitation. “May I have this dance?”

A small circle had formed around us, my friends looking like walking emojis with their heart eyes popping out. All I could do was stare. At Owen. I still couldn’t get over how handsome he was in his white dress shirt, black vest and slacks tailored to his fine physique, those wing-tipped shoes pushing him from hot to hotter.

The Rat Pack had a new member.

I should have crowed yes on the spot, fallen into his inviting embrace. Instead I said, “If I have to lift my arms while dancing, I might clear half the room.”

Not giving me a choice, he invaded my space. He placed one of my hands on his solid shoulder, the other in his outstretched hand. “You smell beautiful. You look beautiful. And you’re going to dance with me, doll.”

My breathy “Okay” was barely out when we began to move. Our first few steps were awkward. His body was stiff. My limbs were as graceful as a hippo’s. All my ballet training disappeared in a whoosh. He tried to guide us to the left, but my instincts led me toward the right.

I cringed. “Shoot.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry.”

“Oof.” He winced as I stepped on his toe. He tightened his hold on me, and whispered, “Let me lead, Ainsley. I got you.”

Fred and Ginger we were not, but my lack of coordination wasn’t because we were dancing our first dance in front of strangers. I just had to relax. Quit trying to halt the natural flow of our rhythm, exactly how’d I’d behaved in our relationship, stressing about Caroline’s text and all the ways Owen could hurt me.

Inhaling his cologne of baked apple, musk, and man, I pictured my father giving him a bear hug. I remembered every time Owen had opened a door for me or asked me if something was wrong, sensing my sour mood. I stopped fighting his movements. Stopped trying to slow our momentum. I held my man, followed his lead, and gave myself over to the notion of us.

The disco ball above receded, the people and chatter fell away.

We didn’t dance to the music. We became the music.

The romantic notes wove through my toes and twisted with my hair. The music strummed under my skin, binding me to him. Owen held me closer than a traditional waltz called for, but I loved how his heart whispered truths against my cheek, the heat of his hand on my back. We spun in circles as the sensual lyrics spoke of falling in love and tripping on your words and being overwhelmed by the woman in your life.

Did that mean Owen was overwhelmed by me? In love with me?

He slowed us down and changed direction, dipping me slightly, just enough for me to glimpse the affection in his warm eyes, then we were gliding again. Rising. Falling. Lights spinning. He turned me into the ballerina of my dreams.

As our confidence grew, he clasped my hand and twirled me in a circle under his arm, once. Twice. My fringe skirt whirled, my belly dipped. My hair was a riot until he caught me against his chest, not skipping a beat as our steps swept us in larger circles.

We were dancing on a cloud.

The song softened, the last chorus drawing us closer. A final dip sent me arching over his arm. A hush fell. My heart soared. He pulled me up slowly, meeting me partway. His lips closed over mine in a sensual rhythm, as spellbinding as our dance. His tongue stroked and swirled, mine following his lead. I never wanted to come up for air.

Someone hollered, “Get a room!”

Applause exploded, the room erupting into cheers as pop tunes returned. The dance floor filled up again, bodies crowding us. I tugged him closer, couldn’t let an inch of space between us. “Get me to your room.”

Our clothes disappeared in a hurry. We didn’t make it to his bedroom, barely managed to get up the stairs. He lay sprawled on his hardwood floor, me on top of him. I was dazed, wild with lust, practically clawing at him. I wanted my mouth everywhere at once, a tigress come to claim what was mine.

He pushed up to suck a path down my neck and breast, working my nipple until I panted his name. All that remained was our underwear, the thick line of him rutting against me in the most delicious way.

I needed him inside me. Just plain needed him.

Rocking harder, I dug my fingers into his neck. His arms locked around my back as our next kiss turned dirty. Depraved. His teeth nicked my bottom lip in a sharp tug, a sting that had me pulling at his hair while trying to figure out how to get my panties off without letting go.

On a harsh inhale, I pulled back. Our chests heaved, his hungry gaze as savage as mine. There was warmth under the passion, too. A connection I never imagined finding with a man. We stared at each other, breathing hard, letting our eyes say everything we weren’t.

You’re mine.

I’m yours.

Don’t you dare hurt me.

That last sentiment wasn’t mine alone. A hint of censure darkened his gaze, a reflection of my own hesitation. It made me fall that much harder. I ran my hand over his brow, down his strong nose, ending on his flush lips. “I’m on the pill.”

He stilled. “Are you asking me not to wear a condom?”

Swallowing, I nodded. “Ever since the stuff with my ex, I get tested regularly.”

Because I didn’t trust men, but I trusted Owen, with my body and my heart, and I wanted him to know it. I’d relived our magical dance the whole ride here, unsure how I’d found myself in a fairy-tale, starring my very own Prince Charming.

He flattened his palm on my chest, over my waltzing heart. “I’m clean, doll. There’s no one else. So tell me you want this. That you want me to thrust my bare cock inside you.”

“God, yes.” A fresh wave of heat seared my thighs.

Grunting, he clutched me to his chest, stood, and walked us to his bedroom, my legs around his waist. I bit his shoulder and nosed his collarbone, even sucked on his chin. He tossed me on the bed, dragged my panties off and shucked his briefs, then he was on his knees, his intense gaze unrelenting as he admired my body while stroking himself.

Using his cock, he pushed my wetness around, teasing me, but he paused. “It’s just us now, Ainsley. You and me.”

My breath caught as I stared at his chiseled jaw and striking cheekbones, infinite passion in his heated gaze. If he were a lying savant who’d cheated on his ex, covering it with the acumen of a thespian, it would devastate me. It wouldn’t leave me with the embittered distrust that still lingered after Brandon’s deception. Owen’s betrayal would breed the kind of hurt that would leave me broken.

But I was whole. And I was his, about to let him sink into me bare.

He pressed his tip into my opening, only an inch. “Okay?”

This. Yes. I wanted this. I wanted him and us. “Okay.”

He swiped his thumb over my bottom lip. “Okay.” Then he pushed in. The fullness was instant, all that warm pressure filling my body.

He moaned. “God, you feel good.”

“More.”

“More,” he agreed.

We moved like we’d danced—me following his thrusts, meeting him in time. Rising. Falling. My heart spinning. It wasn’t enough. He was so hard, each deep plunge stoking my desire. More. More. More. His skin was on fire, the solid expanse burning up. The weight of him was enough to make me lose my mind, and the edges of my pleasure took shape. My life took shape, around this man.

I grabbed his ass, arching as my vision went fuzzy, all my limbs hot and tingly. Tingles that sparked. “I’m there.”

His mouth fell on mine. He kissed me harder, fucked me wilder, lifting my knee to force himself deeper. “I want to hear you come. Over and over. All night.”

“If that’s a dare”—I cried out as he tilted his hips, wow—“I’ll take it.”

His next move hit me just right, a spot of pleasure that nearly split me apart. “God, yes. Right there.” My orgasm splintered through me, a burst of brightness behind my eyes, staggering fullness in my heart.

His release wasn’t far behind, his last thrusts rough and sharp. His body shuddered as his heat rushed into me, and I held him closer, tighter. His voice was haggard as he whispered, “Never letting you go.”

Sounded like a plan to me.

Eventually, he lifted onto his knees and pulled out of me. We both watched the slow drag of his exit. Still turned on, I grabbed his length, so flush and slick. “I want you to come on me.”

His eyes hit their full one-hundred-percent rawness. “You’re going to kill me.”

“It would be a glorious death.”

“That it would.” His words were pure lust as I stroked him. I reveled in how he softened slightly then began moving with my hand, thickening, hardening.

A marathon ensued. He stayed on top, using short strokes to drive me wild, slamming flush when my nails bit into his neck. Over and over. The same rhythm. We didn’t talk. We watched where we were joined until our eyes locked on a gasp, his pupils blowing wide. Then I fell. Ecstasy gripped me, each contraction clamping on his length, but he didn’t come. He slipped out, and I released a cry.

More. More. More.

The need to stay connected shook me, and he was rock hard, nowhere near satiated.

I took charge, riding him—breasts bouncing, back arching—until I fractured again. His shoulder was pink from where I’d bitten him. My peaked nipples shone from his greedy mouth.

More. More. More.

He still hadn’t come again. Grunting, he flipped us so my ass was in the air, and he plunged back inside me in one punishing stroke.

The force knocked me forward. “Are you going for a world record?”

“Can’t get enough.” More thrusts. Deeper.

A moan tore from my chest. “God, you’re thick.”

“You’re so damn tight. Perfect.”

He used his fingers, sliding them under me, rubbing maddening circles as our skin slapped. It took no time, my other orgasms feeding into this one. My arms quivered, my strangled cries an erotic symphony. He pulsed against my inner walls, a second from playing his own crescendo. Except he didn’t.

Grunting, he flipped us again—me on my back, him over me—seating himself to the hilt. I should have been boneless, nothing left after the pleasure he’d wrenched from me, but a feral hunger flashed in his eyes. He was pumping fast, using my body to seek his pleasure. I wanted him to use me, to wring his own release from my body, because I was his to use, as he was mine.

I felt him swell, the hot length of him thickening into a steel rod. His strokes grew more frenzied. Sweat glinted on his brow. Then he pulled out. One hand branding my hip, he stroked himself with the other, coming on my belly and breasts and chest, long spurts that had him shaking.

His features sharpened, a primal growl rumbling from his throat as he touched my stomach, dragged his fingers through his release. “So hot.”

More like scorching.

Enraptured, I joined him, reveling in the odd sensation of his warm seed drying on my skin. I couldn’t look away from his markings on me. “Watching you like that was unreal.” His cock still jutted proudly, a job well done. “You better put that thing away. I’m tapped out. There’s nothing left.”

He grabbed his boxers and cleaned me up best he could. “Let’s shower.”

After a much needed soak, we flopped back onto his bed. The sheets were a mess, both of us naked and spread-eagled on our backs. Owen’s solid muscle was spent and sprawled beside me. My body felt heavy, all the best places tender. “If we keep this up, I’ll never have to visit the gym again.”

“Challenge accepted.” He lifted my hand to his lips and dropped a sweet kiss on my knuckles. “Best sex of my life.”

My ego took a bow. “I mean, the sex was okay and everything, not my worst, but that dance was amazing.”

He read my sarcasm plain as day, exhaustion coloring his laugh. “I know learning my divorce details was hard. I wanted to do something special for you—hoped to show you what you mean to me.”

I loved how his lazy voice lilted into his often-hidden twang. “It was perfect.”

Releasing a contented sigh, I lolled my head from side to side. My sights landed on the jar of glass on his night table. I hadn’t outright asked about it since that first time. It seemed personal to him, something he didn’t often discuss, but I wanted to know Owen. “Are the glass shards from where you grew up?”

The room was dark save for a glow from a corner lamp. A light scritch of leaves tapped against his bedroom window. He followed my gaze and reached for the container, bringing it to rest on his chest while tucking me into his side. “Yeah. The hippie commune. I collected them from a beach we visited, and then from others later.”

He picked up a blue piece and turned it in his hand, then dropped it with a plunk back inside. More words followed, his quiet memories filling the room. He told me about the last day he’d seen his mother, and the riddle she’d spoken. Musings about feeling untethered in her world. How he’d scoured the beach for glass afterward, had collected it for the next few years, spending hours on sandy stretches, picking through twigs and rocks and garbage. He even shared how he’d bawled his eyes out to his grandmother, mountains of hate and hurt left in his mother’s wake.

Gone was the intense desire from our evening, the air swelling with the wayward world of a lost twelve-year-old boy.

But he was older now, a strong man who’d been abandoned by the one person who should have loved him unconditionally. Somehow, he turned that tragedy around and became sweet and loyal and loving, but my heart squeezed for what he’d endured.

I took a piece of glass, letting the smooth edges bite into my thumb. “Why’d you keep it?”

Easing the glass from my hand, he moved the jar and shifted me on my back. He leaned on his forearm over me. Using the shard, he traced a line from my belly to my breastbone, painted invisible strokes along my lips and nose and brow.

He finished by placing it over my thrumming heart. “I kept them because I believed I’d find someone who had a piece of glass that would fit with mine. That I’d meet a woman who made me feel whole and loved and wanted. Probably some weird Oedipus complex I’d rather not interpret, but that’s why I never tossed it.” His voice roughened, scratched up with his history and the baring of his soul. “The second I saw your eyes, Ainsley, they reminded me of the glass. I get lost looking at you sometimes.”

My throat burned, and I bit my lip. “What I feel for you scares me to death.”

“Baby, I know. I’m nervous, too. But this is right. We’re right.”

Instead of agreeing or confessing the extent of my emotion, I said the next best thing. “Is it okay if I sleep over?”

Closing his eyes, he exhaled a long breath. “It would save me from cutting your spark plugs and tying you to the bed.” His tone was light, but he swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple traveling the length of his strong neck.

Since we’d started dating, every time I’d leave his place—never sleeping over, never offering him more—his thinly veiled hurt had cut me to my core. But staying meant trusting, as did sleeping with him without a condom. I was in this relationship mind, body, and soul, whether I was ready or not. “If you do mess with my car, I might have to miss work tomorrow. Spend all day in bed. And this piece”—I lifted the glass from my chest and set it on the bedside table—“is mine.”

He placed the full jar next to my blue shard. “You can have it all. And this was my plan, you know. To woo you with the dance so you’d stay over.”

Time for an admission of my own. “I packed a bag earlier. Before dinner at my folks. Before the dance.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmmhmm.”

His gentle smile said he approved. “I still plan to punish you for ambushing me with your father and your friends.”

“Do your worst.”

His worst turned out to be kissing me slow and deep until I nudged him off. “I need to grab said bag and brush my teeth. I don’t want to have bad morning breath. I might not get invited back.”

I went to move, but he placed a hand on my arm. The humor drained from his eyes, and the lull that followed sent my pulse racing. “I e-mailed Tessa today.”

There goes my afterglow. God, I hated her name. Hated her vile accusations and the hold she still had on Owen. “About the divorce?”

He nodded. “I spoke with a friend from D.C. and sorted through some stuff. I think if I own part of what went down between us I can get the papers signed. She’s coming here next week. No lawyers. Just us, to talk. I wanted you to know.”

Acid burned through my gut. His honesty this time meant the world, but I didn’t trust a woman hell bent on destroying a man, no matter their history. Even if the text I’d gotten had come from Caroline, Tessa’s vindictiveness had been behind it. I also couldn’t imagine why she thought Owen had cheated on her, had no idea what level of crazy she subscribed to.

Unless she wasn’t crazy. Unless my instincts with Owen were as faulty as they’d been with Brandon.

Head spinning, I said, “Thank you,” putting as much sincerity into the sentiment as possible.

Frazzled, I borrowed a T-shirt, grabbed my bag from my car, and escaped to the bathroom. Not cool. So not cool to be having a meltdown after the night we’d shared, but meltdowning I was. All the baggage I thought I’d released roared back, and I gripped the sink. Facing the reality of Tessa and her slander fed my insecurity, rational or not, but I wouldn’t fuel it further. Not this time. I wouldn’t let it ruin this beautiful thing Owen and I had. He also knew his ex. He had a plan.

As did I. I was one step away from becoming my best self and firing my sleazy clients. Facilitating their affairs had to stop, and losing my focus to insecurity could derail my efforts.

Soon I’d be starting a personal shopping business by women, about women, for women, turning the table on my unpleasant job. I’d target those recently divorced, wanting to reinvent themselves in the face of their losses.

What better way to do that than with my pals Dolce and Gabbana?

With Dad landing his job, I had a window of opportunity. He could still get injured, or the factory could fold or cut jobs, so I couldn’t sap my savings completely. But I had a shot.

Owen had even donned the hat of my financial (and sex) advisor recently. We’d sat down for a professional meeting, outlining how much money I’d need for a start-up business and ways to access my target market. I would decrease my volunteer shifts to one or two a month, use all spare minutes to build a website. It was the perfect distraction for my persisting paranoia.